Quotes from Holly Hunter

Actors do movies because you want to make a connection; you want an audience to recognise themselves in what it is that you're depicting.

A play is a hard thing, particularly in L.A. It's less expensive than in New York, but there's also less of a commitment to people doing plays than in New York. So it's a strange battle.

Am I going to go to Heaven or Hell when I die? No. Is there going to be a second coming, and people are going to be stricken down? I find all that exclusionary.

I really admire people who are extraordinarily tolerant and patient.

The first and most important thing you need to be creative is to relax, particularly for the actors.

I've never directed, but it must be humbling.

So much progress has been made with topics like mental illness and drug abuse and sexual identity.

I had such total, unequivocal, enthusiastic encouragement to be an actress. Looking back, I really find that to be a total mystery. Don't ask me why. My father was just in love with the idea that I would be an actress.

People have always searched for answers. That's why we have religion; people have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.

The self-help section of national bookstore chains in America is one of the largest sections. In a way, it's nothing new, and in another way, very new. People have always searched for answers; that's why we have religion. People have always been seeking some relief from their own mortality.

I don't believe in angels, and I'm not a religious person.

I liked to carry the script into an audition because, for me, it reminded people that this was not the final performance. I'm still a work in progress.

I'm not a classically beautiful person, but hopefully it increases my longevity as an actress that my career isn't dependent on my great, great good looks.

Sometimes I go, 'Wow, this is a director I really, really want to work with,' like David Cronenberg. I haunted David Cronenberg for years before, and then he offered me a role.

People don't come to New York out of resignation. They come here with a dream. Mine was to be an actress.

My sister took me as her own. My mum had a lot of help raising me. That's what happens in large families: your siblings raise you.

Crazy people are my people? Really? I think that's silly. That's another one of those pigeonhole things. Lay somebody on an ironing board and put a scalding hot iron on them, get that going real good: 'Oh, this is who Holly Hunter is.'

I guess I'm more of a direct person than an indirect one.

I think that the audience feels a real connection with Zoe Kazan because she's so instantly lovable.

I appreciate my instincts, but my instincts can be dead wrong. Circumspection can give you time.

With 'Broadcast News,' it became a non-issue, and with 'The Piano,' it became a non-issue. Both parts were written for more statuesque women. It was nice to change people's minds about that, because that's neither here nor there.

I would say, yeah, I'm a spiritual person.

This is one of the reasons I like to act - it's because acting forces you into situations you don't know.

You can tell young actors it's going to be very difficult, but there's no way you can understand the difficulties and the rewards through description. You have to cellularly experience it. It's a very difficult career in the long run, but at the same time, there's no long-haul career I'd rather be involved with.